MSNBC's 'The Cycle' Announces Ari Melber as New Co-Host

MSNBC has been playing musical chairs with its on-air hosts. One of those moves left talk show The Cycle without a steady co-host. Now that Salon senior political writer Steve Kornacki has been pegged to helm a new weekend morning show, MSNBC has announced that The Nation correspondent Ari Melber will take up Kornacki’s The Cycle co-hosting duties.

In an email exchange with The Hollywood Reporter, Melber praised his predecessor. “Steve is irreplaceable; he was erudite, unique and downright lovable, and it’s clear the MSNBC audience is excited to see him develop as a weekend host,” Melber said.

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Melber has been a long-time guest appearing all across MSNBC programming and will also be writing a blog on politics, law and constitutional rights for MSNBC.com. He has also been a frequent guest host.

In fact, during one of his guest hosting stints, it unenviably fell to Melber to attempt to paper over Martin Bashir’s airing of an edited video that made it seem as if the father of a Sandy Hook shooting victim was “heckled” by Second Amendment supporters at a Congressional hearing on the crime.

Bashir showed the deceptively edited video leaving it to Melber to note that MSNBC had “received a number of comments” criticizing the network for not showing the full video that proved the grieving father wasn’t heckled at all.

Melber has been filling in as co-host on The Cycle since Kornacki vacated the seat, but now he officially joins panel members S.E. Cupp, Krystal Ball, and Toure.